HELIX: Wearable Cuff with Stereo Bluetooth Headphones

$264,205

1,865

Thank you to our incredible supporters for making HELIX possible!

HELIX: The World's First Wearable Cuff with Stereo Bluetooth Headphones

Fashion and functionality are the principles on which the Helix was created. Helix solves the problem of dealing with tangled and easy to lose headphones. What do you do with your headphones when they aren’t plugged in? Instead of keeping them in your pocket or purse, access them in a fashion-forward cuff for easy convenience. It can take minutes to unravel earbuds. With Helix, you’ll plug in your headphones in just seconds.

Helix was designed for people who are always on and always in style. We want to create something unique for music-lovers, tech users, and smartphone mavens. We want to deliver an incredible sound experience in a wearable that’s on the cutting edge of modern fashion trends. Our goal is to make carrying headphones convenient and fashionable. The discreet, miniature compartment inside Helix accomplishes just that.

We’ve created a wearable that complements your style and takes your tech to a whole new level.

➣ Helix Featured In:

➣ Why Helix?

Amidst the wearables market, which is overflowing with fitness trackers, biomarkers, and smart watches, there has never existed a complementary accessory allowing you to effortlessly keep your headphones with you at all times—until Helix.

A headset is something you want with you wherever you go. Most of us just throw headphones into something we carry with us and later spend hours untangling them. Helix is an elegant solution to this problem. Instant connection to music, podcasts, or phone calls becomes a reality.

We’re all “always on” in this digital age. According to a PR Newswire study, on average we use headphones for four hours a day. The majority of those surveyed had 3 or more pairs of headphones with 48% using them every day. Constantly taking the extra time to deal with earphones is an unnecessary waste. Traditional wired earphones can be hard to carry and untangle. Say goodbye to inconvenience and stay connected. Effortlessly store your headphones with Helix.

“Fundamentally, the marriage of fashion and functional design to create a storage element for headphones simply didn’t exist,” said Mika Nenonen, the Chief Designer of the Helix Cuff.

➣ What Makes Helix Awesome:

On the Go Access: Music is always on hand with Helix. Wherever you go, it goes. Remembering to bring your headphones is easy when they’re right on your wrist.

Sleek Design: We believe your style and tech preferences can meet. Helix will fit seamlessly into your style with its modern design.

Versatile and Comfortable: We made Helix to fit comfortably on your wrist and work with any outfit. It’s so comfortable, you may even forget you're wearing it-that is until you want to use your headphones.

Functional: You’ll never have to deal with tangled earbuds again. Can you imagine? You’ll never lose these high-quality headphones since they can be kept inside Helix.

Music: Music-lovers rejoice! These premium earphones come equipped with Bluetooth to make your life that much easier. You’ll enjoy your music anywhere, anytime.

Holiday Gift: Share the joy of Helix and please that person who seems to have everything. This innovation in wearable tech is sure to wow.

➣ What Makes Up Helix's Design?

Design Mindset:We believe that the most interesting things happen in the in-between spaces. Therefore, in the research phase of Helix we looked at both fashion and tech - the catwalk stuff and engineering. We wanted to create something new and usually new things come together from existing elements put together in a novel way.

We created Helix knowing that the human wrist is valuable real estate. We knew we would have to provide a lot of value in order to persuade people use a wearable that they will see all the time. It's a lot different from something you would carry in your pocket or purse. We paid a lot of attention to the quality of the aesthetics and materials and created a design that looks sleek and stylish, feels comfortable, and cleverly hides its technological power.

Cuff: It’s the loop design that makes Helix fit to a user’s wrist. A neodymium magnet on one side of the loop connects with the other side to adjust to consumers’ wrist size. It takes seconds to slip on and fit on any wrist. That’s just part of why we love Helix’s loop design.

It’s thinnest right below your wrist, where you want it to be, so that you can rest your arm on a table normally. This was one of the main drivers for the Helix’s design. We realized that usability is extremely important for a wearable product.

A loop with a soft curvature is a pain to build. Especially when you add wired earbuds into the mix. Helix has a pretty complex entity of design elements. The challenge is how to make everything look and feel nice.

The unique looping design of Helix allows you to wrap the connecting cord for the earphones into a groove on the wrist cuff when the headset is not in use. A tiny cache on the cuff provides a convenient place to put the earphones.

Earbuds: Helix is designed to make the headphones look natural when in use. Measured to the perfect length, the headphones are short enough to wear on your wrist and long enough to comfortably sit in your ears.

A light shines through the center of the control unit to signal that Bluetooth is on and your device is connected.

Materials: Since it’s a wearable product, it’s important to choose a chemical-resistant material that is durable for everyday use and flexible for bending. The material of the cuff is hypoallergenic and will not cause irritation. The earbud compartment on the cuff is made out of stainless steel with PVD coating on the surface. The stainless steel provides a rigid structure to hold the earbuds inside of the housing. It also adds just the right amount of weight to deliver the premium user experience of wearing a durable and valuable accessory. The PVD coating provides a mirror gloss effect which is an important aesthetic element for the design story.

Design Process: The design process consisted of multiple iterations. We went through hundreds of sketches to find the right look. 3D Prints were a useful tool in testing models. Finally, we narrowed the design down to a few prototypes until we found Helix.

➣ What Is The Technology Behind Helix?

Compromising earbud size and sound quality gave us lots of design constraints, but at the same time, constraints are fundamental for design and they pushed us to be more creative. The Helix is made so that it contains high quality sound in conveniently small headphones. It was challenging to engineer this given the incredibly small sizes of the speakers, but our engineers managed to overcome this obstacle impressively.

CD-Like High Quality Stereo Audio:

The Helix's headphones feature aptX® audio technology that can deliver CD-like quality audio over a Bluetooth® connection. High quality, stereo music playback is enabled across aptX source devices like TV’s, phones, and tablets with a Bluetooth connection.

Multipoint Connectivity:

Two devices can connect simultaneously to the Helix Cuff via Bluetooth. This enables users to switch seamlessly between two devices. You connect Helix headphones to your desktop (or tablet) and your smartphone at the same time. While you're streaming music from your desktop (or your tablet) and receive an incoming call to your smartphone, the call will be automatically streamed to your Helix headphones. Multipoint connectivity makes it easy for you to switch audio sources between two devices without the constant hassle of pairing.

Audio Enhancement and Bi-directional Noise Reduction:

Helix headphones are equipped with cVc® technology. cVc brings advanced audio enhancements and noise suppression to the near and far end, as well as providing packet loss and bit error concealment to deliver the best possible call quality on the Bluetooth headset.

Helix is compatible with all major mobile and wearable devices. From iOS to Android and Windows, you can connect with Helix. Helix can play for up to three hours (expected) and rest on standby for up to 200 hours (expected). Charge time for Helix is less than one hour.

➣ Helix Goes With Your Style:

We offer Helix in two unisex colors: White and Black in the classic edition. The classic edition comes with accents of silver or champagnegold aluminum embellishments. Helix also has a GoldEdition which comes with Bright Red color on the cuff and 18k plated-gold embellishments. These embellishments will be delicately placed to cover the storage cache for the wireless signal receiver and the stereo sound-quality in-ear headphones when not in use.

With a perfectly structured look and feel, we aimed to make Helix an accessory that cleverly masks its technological power so that both men and women can wear it with complete comfort and versatility. The design celebrates functionality.

From your home, to the office, about town and to the gym, the Helix Cuff is the first product of its kind to keep music lovers and other audiophiles stylishly and conveniently connected without compromising fashion sense or sound quality.

Helix offers complete versatility. Easily pair it with whatever you’re wearing without having to worry that the Helix won't work with your outfit. The Helix’s designer brand ensures quality and style. The aesthetic value of Helix is not something to be ignored. It’s designed to last as fashion moves forward. Both men and women deserve to have tech that looks this good, so we’ve designed Helix to work for any gender.

➣ Meet the Team Behind Helix:

Our team reflects the blend of style and technology that is the Helix. Our core team includes industrial designers and engineers who hail from Nokia, Nest, IBM, Lenovo; marketing and branding know-hows in fashion and consumer electronics; and hardware and software experts with deep supply chain expertise.

Angela Pan is a self-taught designer and our enthusiastic leader. Her drive as a female entrepreneur impresses us all. With the success of founding two startups and her experience in early stage investment of IOT wearables and hardware related companies, she is the force behind what Ashley Chloe is and what the Helix will soon be.

Mika Nenonen is the Chief Designer of Helix. He is a former lead industrial designer at Nokia and Nest and won over 20 prestigious design awards including IF Design Gold Award, IDSA Gold Award, and Red Dot Design Award. We are all wowed with the amazing things Mika achieves.

Finally, our production and engineering team is reliable, experienced, and ready to start creating Helix. Our team has been working tirelessly to create Helix. Now we need you to join our team to bring Helix into production.

➣ Why We Need You:

Your Support Is Critical! We’ve been working on this project since November 2014. We’ve gone through numerous engineering and design phases to come this far and now we’re ready for production.

We believe collaboration leads to improved innovation. We value all the great minds of the Kickstarter community and we need your support and feedback to make our product design even better. Have any ideas? Be part of our community and give us a timely comment. We’re on a mission to create an innovative tech wearable. We can’t do it without you!

Without your support, all our efforts and ideation would be in vain. We need you! We will use the funds raised from you for:

Testing: It’s not easy to hold small earbuds in our Helix Cuff without sacrificing the sound and battery quality. But persistent and vigorous product development process and testing can overcome this challenge. Helix’s life is in your hands.

Manufacturing: Quality is extremely important. Helix reflects a complex entity of design elements, we need the capital to kickstart production tooling, to purchase raw materials and to cultivate a close dialogue of our engineering team and a world class manufacturer to enable high volume production and to ensure you receive the Helix in its best shape and status.

Become a part of the Helix Project and you'll help us bring our vision of fashionable and functional wearables to life.

If you decide to support Helix now, we'll have it shipped to you in December2015 just in time for the holidays. It's a perfect time to give that special someone (or yourself) a one of a kind gift.

Support Innovation in Wearable Tech, BACK US on Kickstarter, and GET your Helix Cuff!

Haven't decided yet? We have a whole site dedicated to Helix. Check out more pictures and learn more at

Risks and challenges

We will start shipping Helix to our backers in December 2015. We will update you immediately if we run into supply chain issues. Major projects like this one always run the risk of coming to difficult engineering and manufacturing challenges. We’ve staffed our team with professionals to avoid problems like this. In all we do, our Kickstarter backers will come first. We promise to be transparent and communicate any potential delays and important milestones.

We ensure collaboration with world class manufacturing teams and suppliers. We foresee a high demand in Helix, but with our solid design for manufacturing process, our experienced team is able to scale the production volume. In any case, our Kickstarter backers are always most important to us, so all Kickstarter orders will be fulfilled before any retail orders.

Support

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Pledge US$ 1 or more
About $1.00

JOIN THE HELIX COMMUNITY:

Many thanks for your support in helping bring the Helix Cuff to life. A $1+ pledge will get you
1) Enrollment in the Helix community,
2) Exclusive updates on all things Helix, and
3) Your name featured in the “Hall of Fame” section on our website.

Get involved with Helix and support our team. It’s as easy as a $1 pledge.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $99 or more
About $99

SUPER EARLY BIRD - ONE (1x) CLASSIC HELIX:

For super early birds, a $99 pledge will get you ONE (1x) classic Helix Cuff, which includes
- Your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

With a MSRP of $199, this is a steal for our first supporters. This offer isn't going to last long. Pledge fast to get Helix at its lowest price.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $119 or more
About $119

KICKSTARTER SPECIAL - ONE (1x) CLASSIC HELIX:

For Kickstarter special, a $119 pledge will get you ONE (1x) classic Helix Cuff, which includes
- Your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

At $80 below the MSRP of $199 this pledge offers great value. You aren't going to want to miss this great offer. Get it while the offer's good!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $149 or more
About $149

KICKSTARTER SPECIAL - ONE (1x) CLASSIC HELIX:

For Kickstarter special, a $149 pledge will get you ONE (1x) classic Helix Cuff, which includes
- Your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

At $50 below the MSRP of $199 this pledge offers great value. You aren't going to want to miss this great offer. Get it while the offer's good!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $179 or more
About $179

SUPER EARLY BIRD - TWO (2x) CLASSIC HELIX:

For super early birds, a $179 pledge will get you TWO (2x) classic Helix Cuffs. Each Helix Cuff includes
- Your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

The MSRP for two classic Helix is $398. Get one for you and a friend with this amazing deal!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $199 or more
About $199

ONE (1x) CLASSIC HELIX:

Backers with a $199 pledge will get ONE (1x) classic Helix Cuff BEFORE it’s available online or at store, which includes
- Your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

We appreciate how much you value Helix and your pledge will help us get Helix on the market fast. Get Helix before it’s available to everyone else with this pledge.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $259 or more
About $259

KICKSTARTER SPECIAL - TWO (2x) CLASSIC HELIX:

For Kickstarter special, a $259 pledge will get you TWO (2x) classic Helix Cuffs. Each Helix Cuff includes
- Your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

The MSRP for two classic Helix is $398. Support Helix and give a great gift with this limited-time Kickstarter special.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $269 or more
About $269

SUPER EARLY BIRDS - ONE (1x) GOLD EDITION HELIX:

For super early birds, a $269 pledge will get you ONE (1x) Gold Edition Helix Cuff, which includes
- Bright red cuff with 18K plated-gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

The MSRP for one Gold Edition Helix is $299. Get Helix in plated in 18K gold and save with this super early bird special going fast.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $349 or more
About $349

SUPER EARLY BIRD - TWO (2x) HELIX (ONE Classic and ONE Gold Edition):

For super early birds, a $349 pledge will get you TWO (2x) Helix Cuffs: one Classic Edition and one Gold Edition. The classic Helix Cuff include your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments, and the Gold Edition comes with a Bright red cuff with 18K plated-gold embellishments. Each Helix Cuff includes
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

The MSRP for one Classic Helix and one Gold Edition Helix is $498. Get one for you and a friend with this amazing deal!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $589 or more
About $589

KICKSTARTER SPECIAL - FIVE (5x) CLASSIC HELIX:

For Kickstarter special, a $589 pledge will get you FIVE (5x) classic Helix Cuffs. Each Helix Cuff includes
- Your choice of Black or White cuff with Silver or Champagne Gold embellishments,
- Bluetooth headphones,
- USB charging cord, and
- A set of earbud covers (S, M, L).

The MSPR for give classic Helix is $995. Give the gift of Helix to your family and friends for the holiday and get Helix for a fraction of the retail price.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 5,999 or more
About $5,999

MEET THE HELIX TEAM AT CES 2016 IN VEGAS:

Meet with the team in Las Vegas for our exhibition at CES 2016. Let’s meet in person to discuss future design and technology for Helix, and how we can bring Helix to more people. This reward includes a 2 night stay in a Las Vegas hotel and two Helix Cuffs (One classic and one gold edition). Flights, transportation, and travel insurance are not included.

We’d love to get to know you! Jump on this Kickstarter only offer to get in touch with the team.